WELD – Residents voted 67-36 Tuesday to support SAD 9 directors’ decision to close the Weld Elementary School.

“I think it’s a sad day for Weld,” Selectman Laurie Pratt said. “It’s the end of an era.”

The decision wasn’t taken lightly, she said, with many people attending informational meetings leading up to the vote. Young and old both turned out to vote, she said.

In all, 103 of the town’s 360-or-so registered voters went to the polls.

People were not thinking about taxes; they were worried about what was best for the kids, Pratt said.

“I’m really proud of Weld,” she said. “It’ a sad day.”

Voters have spoken, she said.

Children in grades three through six will be bused to Academy Hill School in Wilton, about 14 miles away.

There were no students enrolled in kindergarten through second grade in Weld this year, but if there were, they would have been bused to Cushing School in Wilton.

Superintendent Michael Cormier previously said the district did its best to keep the rural school open, but with dwindling enrollment and rising education costs, it was no longer feasible. Only 13 students were enrolled to attend the school this year.

SAD 9 directors voted to close the school last spring, but Weld voters had the final say.

The next steps for the district, Cormier said Tuesday, will be to begin moving out furniture and preparing the school to turn over to the town.

“I will mail a letter to the town offering them the building,” he said.

The town’s schoolchildren had a tour of the new school they would attend before school closed for the summer.

They met the teachers and Principal Darlene Paine, and were promised they would be kept informed of who their teachers would be if residents voted to shut the school.

All employees who had stayed with the district have found other jobs in the system.

Older school children in town attend the Mt. Blue middle and high schools in Farmington.

If voters had chosen to keep open the school – built in 1962 to house 75 children – the state calculated it would cost $229,363.74 to operate, with Weld taxpayers picking up that cost in addition to their share of SAD 9 operations. That figure would have been lowered to about $103,092 after an isolated-school adjustment was factored in.

The vote reduces to three the number of towns in the nine-member district with schools: Farmington, New Sharon and Wilton.